Critical Memory Error.

[.Mark]

Sounds like a dodgy memory chip to me but would welcome comments before I pull apart a friends PC!
Windows (ME we think) boots up fine, right clicking on My Computer tells us there is 256MB RAM, explorer tells us it has 46GB free disk space.
Open any application and it works for a bit, then comes up with the critical memory error, asking you to close apps down and try again. Trouble is, it renders the PC useless and often give the BSOD, requiring the machine to be switched off.

Have updated and the virus definition file (PC-Cillin (sp?)) but didn't find anything. I suspect a memory chip reseat may do it as the PC is about 3 years old and has never been opened, what do all you cleaver bods think?

[plotloss]

Certaintly sounds memory related, not sure if its the chip seating or the integrity of the module itself is at fault though.

One way to find out though and thats give the chip a wiggle...

[big_treacle]

you could try running a memory test. if you search for something like 'microsoft memory test' on google, you should find some downloadable memory test software. it creates a bootdisk which will run a neverending loop of memory tests - if you run it for 30 minutes or so you might find something. i tried this when i had a memory problem - it found no problems but proved i didn't have faulty memory and i ended up finding the problem in the BIOS.

[.Mark]

Cheers Big Treacle. Will do the 'Memory Wiggle' first, then try the download.

[Podie]

Sounds like cheap memory to me.

You'll often find that memory sticks have errors in, so are rejected... others buy them, get rid of the markings and pass them on. Stick with someone "known" like Kingston....

..all IMHO of course.

[robp]

I had the same problem, but the memory worked fine in a mates PC

I took out my ageing graphics card (use the PS2 for games) and it worked fine. Must have been a conflict somewhere but I could not be bothered to find it so I just left the graphics card out and the memory worked fine

[.Mark]

Well I spent some time on it last night and found that everything seems to work except for Word. If you open Word all is fine and then go to open a .doc file and it hangs the machine. CTRL+ALT+DEL brings up the plain white error box with the critical memory warning.

So I dropped the Word disk in (Disk 1 of MSWorks) and repaired the Word installation but that didn't work. I then uninstalled Word, rebooted and re-installed it but we still have the same problem.

I'm now thinking of doing a format and starting again. The person who's PC it is want to change to XP (currently it's on ME) if we do that, but are there any other ideas out there? I suspect using the uninstall utility doesn't actually remove all the registry entries so is there a way of actually getting it completely off the system before reinstalling it?

BTW SimmTester is only for Win 9x so didn't try it.